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China slams 'groundless' accusations from Vice President Pence

Posted on Monday, October 08, 2018 by Willis Stokes

Pence Calls Out China for Election Interference: 'What the Russians Are Doing Pales in Comparison'

In a wide-ranging speech delivered on Thursday night, US Vice President Mike Pencesaid Beijing was meddling in the vote to counter tough trade policies against China. "We urge the US to correct its wrongdoing, stop groundlessly accusing and slandering China and harming China's interests and China-US ties, and take concrete actions to maintain the sound and steady development of China-US relations".

"We're forging new trade deals, on a bilateral basis, just as last week, President (Donald) Trump signed an improved trade deal with South Korea, and we will soon begin negotiating a historic bilateral free-trade deal with Japan", he said.

"China always follows the principle of non-interference in others' internal affairs, and we have no interest in meddling in USA internal affairs and elections", Hua said Thursday evening.

He said business leaders must think twice before entering the Chinese market "if it means turning over their intellectual property or abetting Beijing's oppression".

Scott Kennedy, a senior fellow with the Washington-based think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said Pence's speech was the most comprehensive statement the Trump administration had made on China so far, adding that it pointed to serious concerns about China's behaviour in fields such as politics, economics and security. As with Cheney's presentation of the trumped-up case for invading Iraq, the impact on the United States public's view of Trump's China stance has to be a worry. "Now China wants to turn these voters against our administration".

Google has been working on a project it calls "Dragonfly", a mobile search engine that would adhere to China's strict censorship.

Pence complained that China's outward aggression is matched by increasing authoritarianism at home, including a crackdown on religious freedom.

Pence will assert that China's actions surpass those of Russian Federation in trying to shape American opinion.

The vice president also brought up the increased aggression by China's navy in the South China Sea.

Pence's address came before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's scheduled visit to China on Monday, a trip which will focus on nuclear diplomacy with North Korea - an area in which the US still seeks Beijing's cooperation.

- Beijing compelled Delta Airlines to publicly apologize for not calling Taiwan a "province of China" on its website, he said.

In a lengthy report released Thursday evening, the administration asserted that China "represents a significant and growing risk to the supply of materials and technologies deemed strategic and critical to US national security".

Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore said what the Chinese were accused of doing - trying to influence upcoming United States midterm elections - was something countries like Israel and other American allies have been doing to influence political outcomes in the United States to support their national interests.

Can the United States and China resolve their differences?

National security adviser John Bolton said much of what the US knows about Chinese activities in the United States remains classified.

Even as Pence portrayed China as a pernicious threat, he said Trump had cultivated "a strong personal relationship" with China's president, Xi Jinping, and asserted that rapport could lead to a thaw in U.S. His speech this week to the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, not only had undertones of history repeating itself but marked a worrying turning point in USA policy towards China.